Historically, glass has been used as the preferred material for a wide variety of purposes, including packaging for foods, drinks, and pharmaceuticals because of its hermeticity, optical clarity, and excellent chemical durability relative to other materials. However, fast production of glass articles, such as glass containers, has been limited due to contamination of materials housed within glass articles by glass breakage involved in processing the glass articles. For example, a glass ribbon machine, such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,790,397, can form greater than 500 glass articles per minute. However, mechanical fracturing used to separate the glass articles from the remaining ribbon sometimes forms glass debris which may later contaminate the housed materials (i.e., foods, beverages, pharmaceuticals).
Accordingly, a need exists for alternative methods for forming glass articles and associated apparatuses to fabricate glass articles.